Page 60 of The One That Ran Away
Chapter 17
Jess
It was the last bastion of feeling like a young, naïve girl. The last chance Jess had to throw caution to the wind and believe in fate and love for one brief but hot second.
Yet because she didn’t trust Shannon Parker with the last inch of their lives, Jess refused to take the lead. She couldn’t stand the thought of making a fool of herself. Not tonight. Not like this.
Not when she gave up her precious tips at the teahouse to come home with the woman she had been in love with since she was twenty.
That love had never gone away. It may have been dormant, particularly after Jess forced herself to move on and get on with her life, but a love like she felt for Shannon never disappeared. Thoughts of her brought both terror and warmth. Terror that it had been a lie, and that a woman could so carelessly throw someone away like that. Warmth, because it was one of the best things to ever happen to her.
Perhaps that was sad. Maybe it was troublesome. That didn’t make it any less true.
Jess stood in the darkened entrance of Shannon’s apartment. Keys landed in a basket. Shoes came off. Shannon wasted no time coming for Jess’s lips, like she hadn’t wasted any precious seconds on the bridge not so long ago.
This time, however, Jess would not run away. She would have to be pushed out the door. Insulted. Humiliated. The clue stick would have to be big enough to split her head open, too. Because now that Shannon was pressed up against her, kissing her, pushing hands up her shirt and grabbing her breasts, Jess was incapable of sane thought.
This was better than their one night together in college. Better than any other time with any other person, and all they had done so far was make-out in the tiny foyer of a renovated apartment in Nob Hill. The age of the building curled around Jess’s nose before all she could smell was Shannon’s sweet breath and the perfume on her throat.
“Is this really happening?” Jess muttered between kisses. “Or am I dreaming?”
Shannon pulled her off the wall, hands on her ass and tongue in her ear. “If you’re dreaming, then we’re in the same dream, Jess.”
Damn!
They wandered toward the bedroom, although Jess’s need for reassurance constantly popped up whenever they exchanged a tentative kiss or brushed their hands against each other’s bodies. Every touch was an electrifying instance. Every kiss was an amnestic drug that dragged Jess farther into the realms of insanity. Kiss more. Forget more. Dare to believe that the world would be kinder to her this time. That it would be kinder to Shannon, who had clearly dealt with some demons over the past few years.
It wasn’t Jess’s job to make her forget. It wasn’t her job to be or do anything.
So why was she so insistent on passing this performance review? Why was it so imperative to remind Shannon what it was like to have a good time? A blessed occasion of two women reminding each other who they were – because fate had gone out of its way to make them meet again?
There is no fate. There is nothing but chance.Even astrology wasn’t about divination anymore. The modern astrologers had given up. Alchemists couldn’t turn lead into gold, and fortune tellers couldn’t divine the future.
No fate. Only chance.
Only one more chance to make this right.
Shannon shoved her down onto the bed and was on top of her before raindrops hit the window. The harder it rained, the faster the clothes came off. Like she hadn’t cared eight years ago, Jess also didn’t care now that Shannon’s breath and body belonged to a woman constantly fighting with bad habits. Those lips could roam wherever they wanted. Taste the essence of a woman who had been in love so hard that the inevitable end of the whirlwind romance left her bitter and cold. Thread her fingers through hair and touch the tips of Jess’s fingers until their hands were interlaced, palms touching, knuckles knocking against the headboard as bodies came together in that endless union of limbs and lips.
Once upon a time, Shannon Parker hadn’t been afraid to put her mouth on a woman and discover what it meant to indulge in the sexual escape only another woman could offer. She wasn’t afraid now, either. Any trace of fear that she had harbored for the past decade had been banished with the coming rain, washed away until all the remained was the raw, heedless devotion to do what felt good and right.
Jess knew she was doomed when she no longer cared what might happen afterward or how her heart might be broken now that this siren had hooked her fangs into her again.I’ll sacrifice myself to this torture for the rest of my life if it means getting to have one pure minute with her.She thought she had that eight years ago, in the cramped bedroom in a campus apartment, one month before the final semester of their college careers.
Endless potential had laid before them. Even if they never saw each other again after college, they would’ve had that.That.The beginning of the rest of their lives.
Instead, everything had ended prematurely. A cold fact that hit Jess when she was wrapped in Shannon’s naked arms, kissing her lips and throat with the devotion of a woman who wanted to seduce angels.
I’ll never forget how you made me feel.The shit, the good, the in between when Jess accepted her love as a test of her becoming an adult.I’ll never forget when you crossed the line from the impetus of my sexuality to the heartbreaker I never wanted.
Shannon clamped her lips upon Jess’s and came for the last glow of her soul. This was the woman who had the power to snuff out the inner fire barely alive inside of Jess’s heart. Like a fool, Jess let her near it.
***
Memory #17
The only thing keeping my sanity at the start of my final semester was knowing I would see Shannon again. Throughout Christmas break, I told myself that she wasn’t my girlfriend. We had hooked up, and there was no point indulging in damaging fantasies.
Then I returned to campus and was renewed with the memories of how far we had come. How we had traversed the awkward road from mere acquaintances to full-fledged lovers.
